There are technologies in which, when the destination is set, the current location is grasped, and the optimum driving route is selected and presented, like those used in car navigation systems. Furthermore, there are technologies in which a road is estimated from the actual driving history of a vehicle etc. even in a situation in which a road map does not reflect the current states because information of the road map has not been updated, for example.
In a technology described in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. Hei11-119647, held road data is compared with driving data, and road data that has not been held is collected. Furthermore, there is a technology in which the shapes of roads are extracted from an aerial image and are reflected on the road map in the form of a road network. In a technology described in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2004-246554, areas corresponding to roads are extracted from a color image, and road vectors are generated.
From an aerial image, it is possible not only to extract the shapes of roads but also to grasp the state of a wide range of land. Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2000-89664 describes a technology in which the states of land cover are extracted from an aerial image, such as a satellite image, and ecological environment features are detected to make a land use plan.